PSA: Fourth Street Fantasy 2013
I’ve been looking forward to this weekend for the past year. Why? Because this weekend is the annual Fourth Street Fantasy convention. I first went last year, and found it to be a weekend full of fascinating genre discussions, in-depth literary conversation, great music, and wonderful fun. I got to see old friends and make new ones, and it was also the first SF/F con at which I got to be on on some panels.
I had such a good time last year, how could I possibly stay away? Here are the details for this year’s 4th Street:
| What: | Fourth Street Fantasy |
|---|---|
| When: | June 21 – 23, 2013 |
| Where: | Minneapolis, MN (at the Spring Hill Suites Marriott, 5901 Wayzata Blvd, St. Louis Park, MN) |
| Program: | (link) |
| Web Site: | www.4thstreetfantasy.com |
This year’s 4th Street looks to be as awesome as last year’s (if not more so). This year’s program is full of thought-provoking topics ranging from fantasy of discovery, to syncretism, to the heroine’s journey, and more. You can check out the whole program here. This year, I’ll be on one panel and moderating another.
Here are the salient details from the official program line-up:
| Saturday, 9:30am – 10:30am | Intertextuality and Originality No book exists independent of the literary conversation, no matter how much its author may want it to. Elizabethan faeries are inevitably going to be compared to each other, just like dark lords, destined heroes, and vampire- werewolf-mortal love triangles will. Given that very little authors can do will seem novel to experienced readers, how should they approach topics that many readers have been conditioned to read in a certain light? How can works that aim to deconstruct clicheÌs avoid being read as “just X from Y’s perspective”? |
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| Saturday, 3:30pm – 4:30pm | ||
| Narrative Conventions …and how their pressures shape narrative into certain forms. Are we narrowing the stories we can tell by leaning on familiar story forms and Aristotelian notions of rising action, drama, conflict, and the like? To what extent are western narrative conventions culturally specific, and how much of our media (and media- influenced fiction) is being made to fit time-blocks and act structures in ways that aren’t necessarily healthy to export into other forms? |
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If you’ll be anywhere in the vicinity and if you’re looking for some excellent and thought-provoking discussions, I hope you’ll join us! And if you do come, I hope you’ll say hello!
The King of Elfland's Second Cousin 